


Envoi: The Great-Grandson Also Rises (1933)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [306]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Brome - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Family, Feels, Fluff, Gay Sex, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Multi, Nobility, Retirement, Shock, Surprises, Sussex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-11-28 12:50:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18208544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: ֍ The idjits really should have known. The moment you think that life can have nothing left to surprise you with, like Sherlock it pulls out a whopper! In an emotional year the many times in which the duo have helped the Hawke/Buckingham family get repaid as blood will out, and it all ends in tears - of joy, thankfully.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MelodyofWings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodyofWings/gifts).



**1933**

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D. (retired)]_

It was to be one of those difficult years full of Feelings, and it both started and ended with a delivery in the general post. I came down one morning to find Sherlock sniffing over a letter and was immediately worried.

“Has something happened to upset you?” I asked anxiously.

He shook his head.

“Just a letter from Mr. Colsterworth”, he said.

The name meant nothing to me, and I looked at him in confusion.

“As once was Mr. Jaime Lannister?” he prompted. “James' father.”

I blushed at the reminder, and how jealous I had been of Sherlock having had dealings with the handsome young fellow.

“He must be in his sixties now”, I said not at all pointedly.

“Fifty-nine”, Sherlock corrected, smiling in a way that was downright annoying. “And according to Mr. Blackwater the last time he wrote albeit with some shaky handwriting, as handsome as ever.”

I scowled at him for that.

“Why is he writing to us?” I asked. “Is it about James?”

Sherlock shook his head. 

“Just a note of thanks for securing them their new house and for all we have done for his son”, he said. “Mr. Blackwater always had this fancy to be a great lord with a castle, some lands and a wife. I found them a former castle keep that had been transformed into a house, on the shores of a loch in Kirkcudbrightshire not far north of where we solved the Mazarin Stone case. Mr. Colsterworth says that he has never seen the man he loves so happy.”

I smiled at that. That was so Sherlock, spreading happiness all around.

“But I think that I can make you even happier!” he growled, most unfairly using The Voice™ with zero warning. “Back to bed, now!”

I mock-saluted.

“Sir, yes sir!”

And the bastard made me pay for that sarcasm. Twice!

֍


	2. Chapter 2

**1933**

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D. (retired)]_

I know that hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I had a strange feeling from the moment our guests arrived that something was not right. They had met James in the hall and, unusually, he had made his excuses and left early which was not like him at all for all that he had a young family to attend to.

Lord Harry Hawke was the younger brother of both the current Tobias Lord Hawke and his twin Trelawney, the latter now living as sinfully as we were, in his case with Sherlock's 'nephew' Tantalus. Lord Harry's ten-year-old son another Tobias was attending De Montfort School not far away in Lewes along with his younger brother Harry and my great-nephew Dane, although the latter was four years our younger visitor's senior. It was as I have said before likely that Lord Harry might succeed to the title one day as his eldest brother's wife could not have children and Lord Trelawney had already said that he would stand aside so that the direct line could continue. And I doubted that even our 'nephew' Tantalus could get Lord Trelawney pregnant. Well, fairly doubted; the records showed that he had over one hundred and twenty offspring from his 'royal duties'!

“How is Trey?” Sherlock asked the young lord with a knowing smile. The nobleman rolled his eyes.

“As bad as ever!” he said. “I was supposed to go and see him last weekend but unfortunately he was in the newspapers when Lady Guyenne propositioned him on behalf of her dreadful daughter Jeannie at a ball. Tan..... was not best pleased. I... met him the other day and Tan's smirk was downright annoying!”

“Terrible the way that some people behave”, said a blue-eyed hypocrite of the first order. “You are enjoying De Montfort's, Toby?”

Young Tobias Hawke was, like his uncle Trelawney, dark-haired and of only average height so far from the typical Hawke or Buckingham. But he very clearly had his father's and grandfather's nobility of character for he answered straight and true, his curious pale blue eyes holding Sherlock's gaze confidently. Yet there was something in that look that was not quite right.

“It is a good school”, he said equably before looking at his parent. “Father?”

It was the sort of impatient and pointed look that children through the ages have long given their parents when they want them to just get on with something. Lord Hawke sighed.

“This is very difficult”, he said. “You have done so much for my family over the years, Mr. Holmes.”

“Is something wrong?” I asked, feeling ever more worried. The nobleman sighed again before continuing.

“My mother died last week.”

There was clearly a lot more to it than the passing of the dowager Lady Alice who from what little I knew of him he had not really been that close to. His father Lord Harry Hawke III whom we had helped out on several occasions had died two years previous and from what very little I read of the social pages which I may have on occasion glanced at in passing if I had the time, she had become a virtual recluse thereafter.

“And?” Sherlock pressed, looking at me for some reason.

The boy reached across and took his father's hand. That seemed to give Lord Harry strength; he took a ragged breath and ploughed on.

“My mother was, as you may know, originally Alice Smith”, he said, his voice strangely tremulous. “She came from humble origins but Father always loved her despite the thirteen year age gap that some cruel people commented upon. I.... none of us boys were ever close to her and I do not know why; there was just something about her that made her unapproachable. After Father's passing she completely withdrew from society and did not wish us even to visit, although we did offer. Of course we took care of her and all that but we had to respect her wishes at the end of the day.”

“I was therefore surprised to receive an urgent letter from her companion last week. My mother was dying and urgently requested my presence.” 

He was clearly finding this difficult for some reason. I wondered what was behind all this.

“She showed me her birth certificate”, Lord Harry sighed. “The mother's name on it was that of Lady Amelia Dundas.”

I saw Sherlock freeze. He shuddered and I moved immediately to sit next to him. He leaned into me for comfort and I wrapped an arm around him. This was impossible!

“She told me everything”, Lord Hawke said sadly. “As I am sure you know, Lord Edgar Dundas was out of the country at the time that his future wife gave birth. She practised the deception that my mother admitted to me you had uncovered all those years back, changing the date of birth to try to delude her future husband, but she also did something else that she did not tell you about. The former Miss Amelia Everett gave birth to twins – and the second child was my mother!”

Sherlock was visibly shaking now. I pulled him closer.

“I am so sorry”, the nobleman said looking as if he wished to be anywhere but here; his own son moved to comfort him much as I was trying to strengthen my beloved Sherlock. “This is terrible all round, but I must finish it. The new Lady Dundas sent the girl off to be raised by friends of hers, the Smiths; clearly she sensed that there might be trouble.”

I frowned at that but he anticipated my question.

“She had two sets of friends called Smith”, he explained. “The ones who raised her son and the ones who raised her daughter; that may have helped in the cover-up. Her husband discovered about the former but not the latter; I suppose that someone talked as they often will. Lord Edgar had had a second son by then from his....his other marriage I suppose one must term it; Philip the father of the current Lord Dundas. Poor Peter is a decent fellow who does not deserve his family background; I have yet to tell him this ghastly mess and I am dreading that. It was bad enough telling Toby, Tan and Trey; we agreed that it would be better for just two of us to bring you the news first.”

He took another deep breath. Despite the shock that his news was clearly wreaking on the man I loved, I felt sorry for our visitor too. This could not have been easy for him.

“George Dundas died of scarlet fever as you know”, he said. “My mother was raised by the first Smiths; they and their parents had all been loyal servants to Lady Amelia's family so no-one thought their receiving a large allowance unusual especially as she had been well provided for by her marriage. Lord Edgar never found out about my mother; as you know he died a few years back, only a few months before both his wife and Philip.”

Young Tobias Hawke came over and knelt in front of Sherlock. Now that I knew, the resemblance was strikingly obvious. They were blood.

“That means that you are my great-grandfather, sir”, the boy said softly, his pale eyes boring into Sherlock's. “May I be both honoured and privileged in being allowed to call you such?”

And that was what broke my love, pulling the boy into an embrace and sobbing his agreement. He may have lost his son, daughter and granddaughter without ever having seen them but now he had a descendant, someone who like my own Ben had already secured his lineage.

֍


	3. Chapter 3

**1933**

_[Narration by Doctor John Watson, M.D. (retired)]_

It was barely a month after the shock revelation about Sherlock's lost daughter and his 'new' family. There had been one amusing moment during the visit when Lord Hawke had advised his son not to barge in unannounced when he visited and the boy had immediately asked why. For all their wealth, noblemen blush as deeply as the rest of us!

For security purposes it was agreed that Lord Harry's two sisters, Elizabeth and Henrietta, not be admitted to the secret, for despite being Sherlock's great-grand-daughters they were in their brother's words 'two of the worst gossip-mongers in existence (although Sherlock did make sure to keep a watch over them to ensure that they and their families were all right). We did welcome Lord Harry's son Harry and Lords Tobias and Trelawney (plus of course the latter's lover Sherlock's 'nephew' Tantalus) to the cottage and there were Feelings all over the place which was ghastly for just about everyone. But Sherlock was happy, and that was what was important.

I had both thought and hoped that that year would have no more surprises in it, so when I was pottering around the back garden and heard my love cry out from the house I raced (all right, hurried) inside to see what was the matter. I had seen our postman depart back down the track so presumably something that he had brought had caused this reaction. 

Sherlock did not seem to be in pain but he was crying as he pointed wordlessly to the small item that he had dropped on the coffee-table. I stared at it, turned it the right side up then gulped.

A framed sampler. A small thing about two foot by one, and of only average quality. But it was what was on it that had caused my love's reaction. On one side there was a cup of coffee, a barley-sugar and a rasher of bacon, while on the other there was a doctor's bag – very definitely my own as it had the impala on it, a slice of pie (apple and not that large) – and for some inexplicable reason a copy of an open newspaper. And in the middle with bees buzzing around them, a single word in bright blue:

'FAMILY'.

The 'A' was topped with Sherlock's terrible lumberjack hat and the 'L' had a stethoscope wrapped around it. I pulled my love into my arms and held him as he cried tears of happiness. It was just possible that I may or may not have shed a tear myself. Because.

֍


End file.
